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THE SUN IS RISING over the mountains, the birds are singing in the trees. The last thing you'd expect to see is a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR blasting down the road at over 200km/h with the police in hot pursuit. That is exactly what you can expect to see in this game… minus the birds singing in the trees of course. Speed is all the Need For Speed series has ever been about, driving fast cars at speeds well beyond what their owner would or anyone in their right mind would for that matter.
Being on the Xbox you'd expect this game to have good graphics and NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 delivers in a big way. The cars in this game are exquisitely detailed and you can't help but be distracted by how wonderful the bombs dropping out of the police helicopters look, even if you are about crash into them in about half a second. The tracks like the cars have a wealth of detail, and if it wasn't for the linear layout of the tracks you might almost think the tracks were based on actual roads.
The tracks themselves are very impressive. The variety in them is amazing with tracks ranging from small townships in the countryside to highways that pass by small volcanic eruptions. True to Need For Speed style the tracks come packed with alternate routes some of which can be shortcuts while others can be more trouble than they're worth. You really need to learn the tracks and the shortcuts in them to have a good chance of winning. Apart from the aforementioned shortcuts the tracks are extremely linear, barricades line the edges of most of the tracks so if you're wanting to travel off road for a bit you will be disappointed.
When it comes to racing games the controller is a crucial factor as to how much you enjoy a game. A steering wheel is almost always preferable to the default controller however in the absence of one the Xbox controller performs quite well. The default button set up is adequate but there are also two different set-ups all of which work really well. The only gripe is when playing the 'Be The Cop' mode where you have to activate your siren when you want to start pursuing the opposing cars. This it seems is just one button too many and can require you to release some essential keys (such as acceleration) or hold the controller in a very awkward fashion. This makes playing 'Be The Cop' mode in manual transmission very troublesome. |
